Friday, March 30, 2012

I thought it would be taking me at least another month or so to finally get around to having my lemon tulip pattern printed out but what do you know, I called Staples up to find out if I could do this online and... Well I couldn't because their system isn't set up to handle two different file sizes (poster and double poster size) but I could load the files onto a disk and bring it in for them to do.

On March 20th I had the money to do a little something and turns out it cost $13 dollars for the whole pattern print out. Next time I'll be a little more efficient in my layout, but I couldn't tell which size I could use by Staples' online restrictions that turned out to be irrelevant anyway. They do larger sizes for example. And it was like 36 cent a page, not bad. Here they are: just click on it to get a closer look.

So now all I have to do is cut it out, cut the pattern out in fabric and sew it up and put it on my dressform, then there'll be a piece in my portfolio to show off, well, the first and only piece till I've got more to show. That reminds me though, I forgot I can add the garment photos from my other previous client, from last year. That'll be great.

The other great news is that I'm a little over half finished with my client's 10 look collection, she loves my work and would like to work with me over the long term. I don't think there's a bigger confidence booster than someone liking to work with you (and of course liking your work) so much that they want to continue. Hehehe, she's in New York too, fashion hub of America, how cool is that?

Okay well when anything new comes up or I get a breather from my work and family responsibilities I'll be posting again. I just haven't been able to get around to it. I've got article rewriting projects to take care of aside from my patterns and money has been really tight. Despite this though, I want to set a strong moral tone for my son and start a monthly donation project with him. Ever heard of Plan Canada? I love what they're doing, you can pick out "gifts of hope" to have sent to someone over seas. So what I did is told my son how the program works, and had him pick out two gifts that we'll be sending to someone... that is, as soon as I get my payment for the last pattern I did.... still waiting for that one, it won't be long though. Even if it goes into the beginning of April I'm considering it March's donation and will be sharing the notification on Facebook then I'm going to let him pick another gift for the end of April. For March, he's picked out 3 chicks and a mango tree. He's a pretty smart little guy.

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

I've heard and read that the reason to watch fashion shows are to keep up with the latest trends, and when it comes to collections of the past, to gain insight and inspiration from what designers have done before. And this is just one of the ways to get ideas for a new "original" collection of your own. Other ways of course are to look at the different clothing styles from other cultures and periods, looking at art and artifacts, nature, architecture even just checking out the new textiles, prints and fabric innovations can be a source of inspiration.

However these are designer's reasons to watch fashion videos, Patternmakers have completely different reasons and approach to watching both new and old fashion videos. For example I was watching Donna Karan's winter 2012/2013 collection a while ago and as a patternmaker I was inspired, challenged and intrigued by the cut of the garments. I found myself automatically wondering "how was that done?" and then challenging myself with the question of how and if I could do that myself for my own designs. Take a look for yourself:

This was actually quite a wonderful experience for me and I look forward to it every time I watch a new fashion video now (or a retro one for that matter).

Designers come up with new design challenges and adventures all the time that work out to be a great way to keep a patternmaker's mind on it's tip toes. It's actually made me head in the direction of looking into more speciallty patternmaking books as well, right now I've got my eyes on Pattern Making Portfolio Skills and the Pattern Magic series.

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About Me

Here are my updates, ideas, progress, realizations and struggles as a self-taught designer, fashion patternmaker, freelance writer and mother of 2 as I work my way toward reaching my dream of landing a legitimate career in the fashion industry.